We haven't opened either hive to make sure our May split worked.  But photos taken up through the screened bottom point toward our apiary now having two queens.  Both hives also sound right, with a steady hum rather than a discordant, queen-less buzz.

This is the mother hive, where the bees are busy filling up the third box with sourwood honey.  The daughter hive is smaller, but the bees seem to be holding their own.  Anna put the daughter back on sugar water to help the colony bulk up and pack away honey for winter.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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